Author Mike Marsh took this gobbler at a coastal game land in southeast North Carolina. Wiregrass ridges covered with turkey oaks and longleaf pine are typical habitat for turkeys. Photo by Mike Marsh.

Turkey hunters are the most secretive of all hunters. Once a turkey hunter locates a roosted gobbler, he usually becomes squinty-eyed and paranoid, never looking another turkey hunter directly in the eye. In fact, it's less rude to ask, "How much money do you make?" than ask, "Have you heard anything while you were listening for gobblers?"

The answer to either question will be a wince, a sideways glance and a fib. The standard lie to the question of whether a hunter has located any gobblers is, "Nope. I haven't heard a thing."

Ah, but vehicles parked along the roadways in turkey country tell a different story. Hunters park before dawn and as dusk descends, make owl hoots or crow calls, listen for a gobbler's response, then drive frantically to their next listening spot. Such was the case during a scouting foray I made into the vastness of Pisgah National Forest the evening before opening day.

I sat on a ridge overlooking a gravel road with hairpin turns. A steady succession of hunters parked, hooted and listened before the dust from their predecessors' wheels had settled. Any gobbler caring to respond would have worn out his vocal cords after the first half-dozen hooters, and more than a dozen tried to roost a gobbler from that and every subsequent turnout. All the gobblers had been forewarned and the score of the next day's hunt was abysmal for everyone except, of course, the turkeys, who easily avoided the overly ambitious swarm of hunters.

That's one problem with turkey hunting. The more gobblers reputed to be in an area, the greater the hunting pressure. That can make things counterproductive compared with an area with a more modest reputation for producing longbeards. Competition among hunters is a top reason for failure in the turkey woods, at least from my perspective.

Fortunately, with turkey range and numbers expanding, competition is becoming less severe on some public lands. Traditional game lands that once produced numerous turkeys, such as Pisgah National Forest, are seeing decreasing or static harvest statistics. This could be because of a decrease in the number of turkeys achieving adulthood the past couple of seasons, but the declining number of hunters who are picking places closer to home is certainly a suspect cause: Fewer hunters mean, generally, that fewer birds will be bagged.

Pisgah, along with its sister Nantahala NF, have always been tops for turkeys. Sites of the state's initial restoration turkey stockings, these two national forests comprise more than 1 million acres and have also benefited turkeys through excellent side effects of forest management practices, as well as intentional turkey habitat enhancement.